


Illumination

by prepare4trouble



Series: Little By Little [47]
Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Ezra and Zeb are space brothers, Gen, Space family, Visually Impaired Ezra Bridger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-23 14:12:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17684993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prepare4trouble/pseuds/prepare4trouble
Summary: Set before the bulk of the AU. Zeb and Ezra disagree about the lights in their quarters.





	Illumination

**Author's Note:**

> This is another one set before the main story. It takes place sometime during season 2, and so before Malachor. Ezra is still keeping his secret and nobody had any idea that anything is wrong.

“Hey, kid. You want to turn that light out now? Let me get some sleep?” **  
**

Ezra sighed. He had known it was coming, but Zeb had given him a little extra time tonight before he asked, and Ezra had allowed himself to slip into a false sense of security. Things had been quiet from the lower bunk, and he had been hoping his roommate had fallen asleep already. No such luck.

He stared at the ring of illumination in the otherwise dark room. It was only a small reading light built into the side of his bunk, not the room’s main light. It wasn’t like it could really be keeping Zeb awake. There was no way it bothered him as much as he claimed.

Ezra glanced around the rest of the room. He could just about make out the shapes of the larger items and furniture there. They appeared as areas of light and dark; vague shapes that he never would have recognized if he hadn’t already known what they were. The light was only small, true, but he knew that he should be able to see more than that. He should be able to see everything in the room, just like Zeb no doubt could. Instead, the glare of the light was one of the few things he could make out among a sea of darkness.

He could see the illumination strip around the edge of the wall, but that wasn’t designed to actually see by, only to provide the slightest hint of light so that the room wasn’t completely dark. It didn’t work anymore. Not for Ezra, anyway.

It was getting worse.

Not only that, but it seemed to be speeding up. He was noticing it more and more now; every day, several times a day, and soon it was going to reach the point where it would be impossible to ignore. Worse, it was going to reach the point where it was impossible for  _other people_  to ignore. Someone was going to notice, and say something, and before he knew it everyone was going to have found out.

“I know you’re awake up there,” Zeb said. He sounded vaguely irritated now, thinking he was being ignored. Technically, he  _was_  being ignored.

Ezra rolled over onto his back. “Here’s a thought,” he said, as he moved his hand closer to the light and watched it come into something like focus. “If you close your eyes, you won’t be able to see that the light’s on.”

He thought back, trying to track the progression. Had he been able to see in the dimly-lit cabin a month ago? A week? He couldn’t be sure. It was difficult to keep track. He couldn’t write it down; someone might see it. Even if he kept it vague there was a chance they would work it out. Anyway, sooner or later it was going to reach a point where he wouldn’t be able to read it, rendering the whole thing useless.

And after that, it was going to get even worse still…

There was a rustle of bedcovers as Zeb shifted around. “I can still see it through my eyelids,” he complained.

That didn’t sound so bad to Ezra. He scowled and didn’t reply. The week before, he had finally forced himself to read up on Sacul Syndrome, and from what he could work out from the very small amount of information he could find, the younger you got it, the faster you went blind. Considering the average age was somewhere in your early fifties, Ezra had gotten it  _very_  young. It wouldn’t be too long before seeing light, through his eyelids or otherwise, was a distant memory.

Unless, of course, he was wrong about what was happening. There was still a chance he was wrong.

He  _had_  to be wrong, because he had come so far over the past year and a bit, and if he was right, it was all going to go away. You couldn’t be a Jedi if you couldn’t see; you couldn’t fight the Empire if you didn’t even know which direction to swing your lightsaber.

He had to be wrong, because otherwise he was going to have to return to Lothal. Maybe not even that; he was known there, and if he couldn’t defend himself or run away he would be a target. He might have to go somewhere new, somewhere where he could hide away.

Either way, it was all over. Unless he was wrong.

“Come on, lights out,” Zeb insisted again. “I’m tired of this argument every night. What are you, scared of the dark all of a sudden?” He laughed deeply at the idea.

Times like this, Ezra almost  _wanted_  to come out and tell them what was going on. It might be worth it to shut Zeb up.

He flicked off the light. The room fell into instant and complete darkness. He found himself looking at it – not trying to look through it because he knew from experience that it was impossible – but looking  _at_  it, trying to force himself to become used to it. If that was going to be his future, if there was nothing he could do to stop it, he had no choice.

“There, see. Not so scary after all,” Zeb said mockingly from the bunk below.

Ezra wanted to argue back, to angrily deny that he was afraid, but it would be a lie. Instead, he turned over again so that he could at the very least see the illumination strip. The light rippled out at the edges in a way that he hadn’t noticed before, giving it the appearance of being larger, yet duller than normal. It didn’t matter, it was a thing that he could see. He wasn’t blind yet. He lay very still, staring out into the room and willed his eyes to adjust to the low light. They would do it, eventually. It would just take a lot longer than it used to.

The truth was, he  _was_  afraid. Not for the reasons Zeb might be implying – and he knew that he was only teasing and that there was no real malice behind the words – but because it was unnerving to helplessly watch the slow but steady progression of the deterioration, and to be unable to do anything about it.

“Ezra, you okay?” Zeb asked. “I was only teasing, you know.”

Ezra frowned; he knew he was being conspicuous by his silence, he needed to throw an insult back, or Zeb might start to put things together. “I only want the light on so when your snoring wakes me up, it’s easier to check and make sure a Loth-wolf hasn’t broken in and started eating you.”

“Ha. Fair enough. It still stays off.”

“You know, because you’re so loud it’d be easy to think that’s what the noise was.”

Zeb sighed. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. It’s hilarious. But at least I’m not afraid of the dark.”

But Zeb seemed to accept that reply. Ezra lay in the darkness and listened to his bunkmate’s breathing slow as he began to drift off to sleep. His own eyes remained open, though they still hadn’t even started to adjust to the gloom. He was beginning to realize that they weren’t going to. Not anymore.

He closed them instead. At least that way he wasn’t supposed to be able to see.


End file.
